Amid the Pandemic's Urban Quiet, a Song That Makes Sense

"Every musician knows that when the performers can hear one another, the performance is always better than otherwise," writes Slashdot reader nightcats. "This principle applies in nature as well, and has been anecdotally witnessed amid the quiet imposed by COVID-19 on cities around the world. In San Francisco, behavioral ecologist Liz Derryberry has been able to deliver a dramatic scientific demonstration of the changes to the songs of the white-crowned sparrow amid the quiet of 2020." National Geographic reports: With most San Franciscans staying at home due to the coronavirus pandemic, she decided to seize an unprecedented opportunity to study how this small, scrappy songbird responded when human noises disappeared. By recording the species' calls among the abandoned streets of the Bay Area in the following months, Derryberry and colleagues have revealed that the shutdown dramatically improved the birds' calls, both in quality and efficiency. The research, published today in Science, is among the first to scientifically evaluate the effects of the pandemic on urban wildlife. It also adds to a burgeoning field of research into how the barrage of human-made noise has disrupted nature, from ships drowning out whale songs to automobile traffic jamming bat sonar.

in Soviet Russia

[Anonymouse Cowtard]

... bird hears you!

Re:

[SpankiMonki]

Is there not going to be an official venue for discussing the suspension of anonymous posting?

Management can't stomach it?

I think it's plain to see who the real cowards are.

LOL, of the 7 posts in this discussion, there's you and two other guys who didn't shitpost. Yet you got modded down with the Nazi and the sex perverts. I guess there'll be no discussion about the AC posting change.

It's insane how noisy city streets are

[dargaud]

Try this: put headphones on at home with loud music. Get out on the street on a busy day: you now have to raise the level another 2 or 3 notches because you can't hear shit.
Cities are way too noisy and many of those noises could be eliminated: ban stupid Harley Davidsons and their fake motor noises, bans exhaust modifications on motorbikes and cars (it's already banned in my country but never enforced), ban 'motor noise tuning' or whatever it's called where electronics on the motor make more ('better') noise, force the use of active noise cancellation on motors, and of course don't add fake noise on electric cars !!!
And that's just for starters as there are many more things that could be changed for instance on constructions.

Re:

[ZiggyZiggyZig]

While traveling to Japan I realized that motorcycles were much quieter there than the same models sold in Europe and I have always wondered why we have such a culture of noise in our countries.

Re:

[toddestan]

In the US, there are limits for how much noise motorcycles can make. When a motorcycle is sold new they are relatively quiet, but somewhere around 80-90% of motorcycles in the US are modified by their owners to make more noise after purchase. While this is illegal, the law is almost never enforced.

Personally, I'm tired of loud motorcycles. I'd like nothing more for law enforcement to start cracking down on loud motorcycles, fining their owners and impounding the bikes if they aren't brought into complian